William Carrier had the game winning goal, Jaccob Slavin had an assist in his first game back since a new injury in Florida, Jordan Staal had two assists, and the Carolina Hurricanes came back to defeat the Seattle Kraken 3-2, handing Seattle their first game without a point since December 18th.
The win was Carolina’s fourth straight since a three game losing streak, all in regulation, and leads to a big game Monday as the top two teams in the east—Detroit and the Canes—will face off.
The Hurricanes
got the jump on the Kraken thanks to a laser by a red hot Logan Stankoven. The Hurricanes dominated play early and had the Kraken doing what they could to get the puck of the zone. K’Andre Miller would take one of those clearing attempts and keep it into the zone, skate to the next to draw the recovering defense, and passed it to Stankoven who slapped it past Joey Daccord for the 1-0 lead.
However after that the Kraken steadied their game and while the Canes would dominate the period in shots, the Kraken would make them lower danger and wait for their chance. It came late in the first as Matty Beniers skated in open ice and put on a great deke past Slavin—notable just because it just doesn’t happen that often—and go in all alone to put it past Brandon Bussi and knot the score. The Kraken would get a late Power Play chance that went empty, and while the Canes led 10-4 in shots they would be tied after one.
The second period saw plenty of action in terms of the Canes once again leading in shots 11-4, and the Canes having a Power Play. However the extra man effort went empty, and after two the score was still tied 1-1.
The third period is when things picked up. Before the first stoppage, Seattle had started to put some pressure on, and it forced Bussi to try to clear the puck himself. While Bussi has been great at many things, one of them hasn’t been his puck handling. Sure enough, his attempt went right into the stick of Ryan Winteron, who passed it back to a wide open Berkly Catton. Catton got it past the recovering Bussi and the Kraken took 2-1 lead.
Seattle would clamp down and for a short period of time it seemed like the game would be played at their style. But after a few minutes the Canes started to dictate play and the Kraken played a little too passive. Unlike earlier in the game when it felt the Canes’ shots weren’t particularly high danger, the pressure put on by Carolina was intense. Sure enough, the My Two Dads line rewarded the hard work by getting a gritty goal to tie the game. It started with a good pass near the net by Seth Jarvis over to Jordan Staal. While Staal worked the puck, Jordan Martinook parked near the net. Staal saw him for a pass and Martinook potted it to make it 2-2.
The Canes continued to play hard, not content with going to overtime, while it seemed like Seattle was hoping to just continue their point streak. Soon enough, the Staal line was again on the ice, and Jarvis again initiated the play by intercepting the puck on a Kraken clear attempt. He led the charge and passed it off to Staal, and he and Slavin would pass it back to each other before Slavin pushed it towards the net in a goal that was initially ruled his, but later changed to Carrier as the replays showed the shot bounced off his foot.
Seattle would take their time out as they took a long time to decide if Will Carrier interfered with Daccord, but the replays showed Ryan Lindgren shoving Carrier in the paint, colliding with Daccord. Had the officials called interference on the ice it’s possible it wouldn’t have been overturned. Instead it was a good goal, and the Kraken decided they didn’t want to risk being down a man for two minutes, especially misisng their timeout. The goal stood, and then the Canes really didn’t give Seattle any other good looks for the rest of the period.
For only the fourth time this season the Canes put out everyone on the ice they thought they would at the start of the season, and the time on ice reflected that as five of the six defensemen charted over 18 minutes in TOI, led by the K’Andre Miller and Sean Walker pairing with 22 and 21 minutes, respectively.
The Canes now head back out on the road for a tough back-to-back with Detroit and St. Louis before facing off against the Florida Panthers for the final time in the regular season at home. Those games start a seven game in thirteen day stretch with four of them on the road. In short, it’s the right time for the team to be at full health for one of the first times this season.
